Bretonian RP - Stagnant? New Ideas? Pushing the line?

[Vicho Deivis]

I never say it gonna be easy or without sacrifices. What I'm trying to say is that it is a better plan than go for Endimburg, with the fleets of Embrun and Castres following your following your reasoning. Plus I am not proposing re-conquer Lewis, at max only to blow up Glendale or at least disable the station inRP (add some smoke and fire in practice). If the BAF, LN, CR, etc etc win an event about this of course. Otherwise it would be completely unfair.

We are talking about the GRN, the most powerfull human military force so far, they can not be defeated conventionally.

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[Highland Laddie]

Lewis and Orkney are irrelevent in terms of supplying Leeds and Edinburgh now that GRN have a direct jumpgate in Tau-23. They can just as easily access Tau-31 and Edinburgh through Leeds.

A lot of this depends on the overall strategy to fight the GRN:

1) a head on confrontation by the BAF alone would be suicide, but a large engagement coinciding with allied fleets from the Liberty Navy, Council, and Colonial Republic could be enough to stall or even push back the brunt of the GRN unless they were willing to bring in reinforcing fleets from other systems...and thereby leaving those systems exposed to guerrilla attacks.

2) multi-faceted attrition warfare across the board by BAF, LN, CR, Council, Maquis, Exiles, and maybe even a betrayal by IMG and Kusari Republic forces would be devastating...leaving the resource-starved GRN no real safe havens within Sirius save for what they can carve out and keep defended. The attrition would eventually weaken them somewhere, which could then be exploited by a massive fleet action (maybe in Leeds or in the Taus to cut them off).

[Fluffyball]

I was speaking of the fact that Armed Forces are AWARE of the fact of the existence of the jumpholes. Unless Dublin and Leeds are fully out of Bretonian influence, GRN will have sorties against BAF from "two", not "one" border. My idea is that securing Dublin is a matter of diplomacy, where Gallics helps Mollys in settling their own nation, providing battleship or two, "recoloured" into Mollys' colours - just to have someone to guard rears.

If GRN let Mollys create their own Republic and leave them alone, it would be more appreciated than securing Dublin with force, what would lead to theoretical ceasefire between Mollys and BAF.

About Kusari Republic:
Kusari is between hammer and stone right now, because there's a problem - Rheinland. Kusari is VERY dependant on Rheinland dry docks right now and Rheinland is kinda dependant on Kusari, because of the Liberty-Rheinland war and embargo following it. If Kusari was to help Bretonia, so would help Liberty as well, that would put Rheinland and Kusari into awkward position - from a diplomatic point of view. Not to mention the inner (already shattered) integrity and stability of the Republic, what could even ignite civil war in Kusari.

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[Highland Laddie]

Well, I was also thinking the Kusari Civil War arc would follow nicely in a post-GRN double-cross situation.

Also, Kusari already trades with Liberty without getting the full ire of Rheinland, so to me it would seem unlikely Rheinland would go hostile with Kusari if Kusari worked with Liberty against Gallia.

[Vicho Deivis]

I insist that this depot destruction will cause a significant troubles, even if it doesn't end the war. If this was the first years of the WW2 and Galia the Germans that station would have been attacked eons ago. Anyway...

2) mulch-faceted attrition warfare across the board by BAF, LN, CR, Council, Maquis, Exiles, and maybe even a betrayal by IMG and Kusari Republic forces would be devastating...leaving the resource-starved GRN no real safe havens within Sirius save for what they can carve out and keep defended. The attrition would eventually weaken them somewhere, which could then be exploited by a massive fleet action (maybe in Leeds or in the Taus to cut them off).

I doubt this gonna happen. It go against everything that the technicaly "non-puppet" goverment of Kusary have done and for the IMG it could mean the annihilation of most of their people in the Taus. The IMG are miners, not soldiers.

If the CR had keep Tau-44 the story in the Taus could have been different*, but is too late for that.

*inRP at least. ooRP problems like players activity are always an unknown.

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[Ironwatsas]

There are a couple of main points I'd like to address in my (flawless) opinion. Now, I've been RPing in Bretonia primarily from the perspective of Planetform, but I've also been playing Discovery basically since the Kusari-Bretonia war began. And at this point, it's basically been the same war going on for 6 years.

Now, there's a wide range of problems which discourage activity in Bretonia. The Jumpgate/Hole network is a clogged up mess. All the good trade routes terminate in Newcastle, which, even with trade-lanes, huge and intimidating to navigate. The forever war. Leeds and Edinburgh being cut off. And, if you think about it, the fact that most of Bretonia, and most of it's ships, are brown, dull, and depressing to look at.

There needs to be a major shift in the Nature of the Gallic War in order to spark activity. Each faction within the Gallic War needs to have it's own specific role to play.

1. Bretonia is still the house being invaded, so would handle most of the front-line combat.
   
2. Liberty is THE industrial powerhouse, and would be able to back the BAF up and basically go "Arsenal of Democracy"
   
3. The Colonial Republic needs to get a bigger role. Taking back Tau-44 and intrigue in getting the IMG to somehow screw Gallia from behind the lines should be their goal.
   
4. QCP should end up being the "token evil teammate" working in it's own interests.
   
5. Kusari Exiles should be trying to retake Kusari in order to get it to stab Gallia in the back.
   
6. Council, Maquis, etc are still fighting the war within Gallia. But some severe geography shifting needs to be done in terms of Gallic System design to make them at all interesting.
   

The thing is, from a strategic perspective, Gallia is unbelievably screwed no matter how advanced it's technology and numbers are. Infact, those two factors make it worse for a simple reason. Logistics.

Every munition and piece of equipment it uses needs to be shipped in from the Gallic Core worlds. Due to the huge size of Gallic space, Council/Brigand/QCP/etc raiders, etc, that's easier said than done. Another thing to take into account is that Gallia would have taken not-insignificant losses from the early battles and general attrition.

From a gameplay perspective, shifting Bretonia's jump-holes and trade routes around to make it more appealing to traders would be a logical idea, since that's basically the allies' ace in the hole. There need to be some hugely profitable Liberty-Bretonia routes to represent the general nature of the war. Furthermore, the frontline needs to shift away from Leeds. Either to Tau-31, Newcastle, Magellan, or somewhere else.

The most plausible scenario is that the Rheinland/Liberty war winds down and Liberty enters the Gallic war wholesale. It throws pretty much everything it has into defending Bretonia, which allows successful joint operations across a wide front. The BAF and Liberty Navy form a joint command. They then begin a large-scale counteroffensive in Magellan and Tau-31 (via Dundee and Newcastle) which basically forces the GRN to defend a wider area, breaking up it's forces and allowing different fleets to be defeated in detail.

The Colonial Republic, with aid from either the Kusari Exiles, IMG, Council, or some combination of the three launches a series of raids with the objective of Re-taking Tau-44. They may or may not, for some reason or another, be assisted or opposed by the Golden Chrysanthemums (who are also in desperate need of activity, and due to the proximity of Tau-65). This forces further Gallic force transfers to defend the region. From a game mechanics standpoint, this would mean putting a CR base/NPC battleship into the system.

Another major wild-card is Kusari. Kogen's exile wouldn't have happened spontaneously, and it damn sure wouldn't have been popular. That'd be sort of like overthrowing the Pope and declaring the Vatican a protestant state. There are already a number of parties (Exiles/Samura, GC, Dragons, Kemeitai, Iseijin, and Ame-chan) plotting various regime changes in Kusari and at-least one of them WILL succeed. Odds are whoever does so won't be too friendly to Gallic domination.

Either Kusari will be thrown into a civil war or the regime will change quietly to one which is harmful to Gallia. If Kusari were to try anything overt, it would probably lose badly, considering the shoddy state of the KNF, but it would create another huge manpower sump which would break Gallia's back.

There's no real way, considering the stated logistical situation, for Gallia to decisively take over or even defeat Bretonia and occupy it successfully. Even if it were to take over all of Bretonia's stations, planets, and infrastructure, and Even if the BAF were annihilated tomorrow, it would be faced with a series of guerrilla wars and would still be fighting Liberty and the Council.

On the other hand, and for the same reasons, I don't see it likely that any or all Sirian houses, even united, would be able to completely destroy the Gallic House, largely for the same reasons. Gallia is unknown territory, is huge, and is too well defended.

After this point, Gallia is slowly pushed back to Orkney by the combined Allied fleet. A series of final, decisive battles are fought in the Upper Tau Regions basically to a draw. Either an Armistice is declared or the Council siezes control of the Gallic Government (or both) and the war officially ends. Lingering tensions and holdout skirmishes remain in order to give something for the factions to do, but after this point, Bretonia/Liberty and Gallia normalize relations and rebuild.

As for lesser factions like Mollys, Gaians, Bretonian corporations, Kusari Unlawfuls, etc, each "minor" faction should gain atleast one major "side story" plotline that might be interesting.

One example being a Gaian-Planetform war going back and forth between Harris and Islay (Planetform tries to recapture/destroy Perth to cover something up, or the Gaians try something bold to take over/destroy Harris' facilities now that the BAF isn't defending it).

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All that begins must end.

[Vicho Deivis]

The Colonial Republic, with aid from either the Kusari Exiles, IMG, Council, or some combination of the three launches a series of raids with the objective of Re-taking Tau-44. They may or may not, for some reason or another, be assisted or opposed by the Golden Chrysanthemums (who are also in desperate need of activity, and due to the proximity of Tau-65). This forces further Gallic force transfers to defend the region. From a game mechanics standpoint, this would mean putting a CR base/NPC battleship into the system.

There are a few issues that you ignore:

1) The KE are more focus on return to their home than waste their lives against Galia. Wich is what makes more sense inRP. Plus as far I know there is little to zero contact between CR and KE. I don't know why, could be old ooRP problems or the fact that the main focus of the KE is not Galia.

2) The current CR don't have any plans of retake Tau 44. inRP the republic is more concern of ensure the liberty and safety of our people and that imply don't move again thousands of civilians just becuase we temporary recover our old home many systems away and with the GRN in midle. Home that was ours for what? Less than ten years inRP? Less than two ooRP in a time when almost none of the current was on the server or even know something about Disco? Like it or not, our home now is Coronado.

Don't get me wrong. The Colonials will fight the GRN to the end of our days but we understad realities, and the reality is that we don't have the numbers to face the GRN directly. inRP we have presence all along the front, from Bretonia to the Taus, but mostly in form of small squadrons of fightesr and bombers. The council or even the exiles have more firepower inRP than us.

We may be crazy enough to challenge Galia but we are not stupids.

3) Tau 44 itself have no value. If you see the rumors* in the GRN bases there you will find that they have no idea of what to do with the system. Is far away, no particulary mineral rich, Borneo is too ugly to live there... etc.

4) The GC are allies of the OC, a declared enemy of the Colonials. So I don't belive that they help us at all.

*Relax, I did this on my old server you don't have an ooRP spy jumping from restart to restart.

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[Thyrzul]

letting the gauls enter newcastle, something they can't allow.

GRN already has some presence in Newcastle. You didn't notice the NPC raid patrols, did you?

The Mollys are not allied with Gallia, and i'm pretty sure they do not count on Gallia to achieve their primary goal of freeing Dublin.

As far as I know it's among the terms of the NAP between the Mollys and Gallia that the Mollys get Dublin once Gallia is done with Bretonia. I might be wrong, but I can try to look up the treaty anytime to make sure if I'm correct or not.

A thing that the Mollys are doing for sure, is exactly expecting the gauls to turn on them, once they're done with the brets'. at least once New London is taken.
First of all, Mollys don't have any trust in strangers ( and i would add especially from expantionists kingdoms ), and Dublin is the only place in sirius where you can find it.
Therefore the Molly exepect to be attacked sooner or later.

From certain sources I consider quite accurate I heard that Mollys have already made agreements with Gallic corps like GMS about gold trade, which is seemingly in conflict with your concept of... how to say... xenophobic (?) nature of the Mollys. I'd be curious on how the Molly faction leader sees this.

@Ironwatsas
Massive plans on developing Gallia and possible future of the war are getting thought out and discussed. (Exams are over for me for the next couple of months, yay.)

About profitable trade routes between Liberty and Bretonia, I can show you at least a dozen.

@Vicho
It's not only CR with whom KE has little contact with, there are barely anybody to roleplay them and even then they care about themselves and their own goal mostly, not even contacting Council to roleplay anything around Council letting them pass through Roussillon. Nothing besides Devs placing half of their forces into Roussillon was happening about that.

Besides, as far as I know the CR got a few caps at least for mobile bases to stage their raids from. KE don't have much more either (afaik the 2 stationary battleships only, rest are snubs, maybe gunboats too), nor does Council, the Roussillon Battlegroup uses caps mainly for defense of Roussillon.

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[Blodwyn O'Driscoll]

letting the gauls enter newcastle, something they can't allow.

GRN already has some presence in Newcastle. You didn't notice the NPC raid patrols, did you?

Just a minor presence , not a full scale fleet that threaten NL from Newcastle.

The Mollys are not allied with Gallia, and i'm pretty sure they do not count on Gallia to achieve their primary goal of freeing Dublin.

As far as I know it's among the terms of the NAP between the Mollys and Gallia that the Mollys get Dublin once Gallia is done with Bretonia. I might be wrong, but I can try to look up the treaty anytime to make sure if I'm correct or not.

Nope.
The NAP states that the gauls recognize the owner of the Mollys over Dublin , Derry and ervy Molly bases. That's all.

A thing that the Mollys are doing for sure, is exactly expecting the gauls to turn on them, once they're done with the brets'. at least once New London is taken.
First of all, Mollys don't have any trust in strangers ( and i would add especially from expantionists kingdoms ), and Dublin is the only place in sirius where you can find it.
Therefore the Molly exepect to be attacked sooner or later.

[align=justify][color=#FFFFFF]From certain sources I consider quite accurate I heard that Mollys have already made agreements with Gallic corps like GMS about gold trade, which is seemingly in conflict with your concept of... how to say... xenophobic (?) nature of the Mollys. I'd be curious on how the Molly faction leader sees this.

That's true, in fact, that's a part of the NAP, however i've never seen any GMS ship in Dublin.
And officialy allowing thoses gms ships, doesn't mean the Mollys like it, it is just a trade off for having the right to enter Gallia ( and selling their gold there ! ).

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That is the crux of the matter.
If you aid us, and you aid them, you are the enemy.
If you do not aid them, you are worthless outside of extortion potential.
If you aid us, you will be treated with respect.

Colin H. Breen, of the Molly Republic

[St.Denis]

That's true, in fact, that's a part of the NAP, however i've never seen any GMS ship in Dublin.
And officialy allowing thoses gms ships, doesn't mean the Mollys like it, it is just a trade off for having the right to enter Gallia ( and selling their gold there ! ).

DRED use to/still do mine in Dublin for Gold Ore. Also a few other Indy GMS Miners still do to my knowledge.

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Life is full of disappointments, it is how we handle them that helps to define us, as a person